I wonder, sometimes, how the world can have so many secrets.

Perhaps, I would be happier if I was ignorant. If you, and everyone else, did not come, whispering into my ear...
           fears, lies, the wrongs of the past, your deepest insecurities

Perhaps it is my face that makes you - all of you - trust me.

Or perhaps it is the way I blend easily in the background, the way I speak up only rarely.

I know enough secrets for a life time; plenty enough to drown in.
Some of them, granted, learned from behind a door, listening, but
most freely given.

You say you can trust me, that's nice.
'Fact, it's enough to make me smile.

I think I'll still keep the secrets to myself, though, even if I return the sentiment. And yeah, I do.

Sometimes, see, it's less of a burden not to know, than to see everything so clearly, and be so utterly helpless...

i'll still keep all the secrets, though, don't you worry - - exhausted of it though I maybe, i still know how to keep my mouth shut,  *how to help out when i can...

One million dollars in between her fingers,
Chipped blue nail-varnish.
A cigarette; a tired frowning mouth.
Black denim jeans.
A petrol station, expensive perfume on her neck.
A flower patterned halterneck, a bottle of liquor.
The faded sun hides behind cloud bodyguards.
The woman is alone at midday,
The breeze is cool, the alcohol is sweet, her tears are hot, the mascara runs black.
She's tired; is she lonely?
She's lost, but a lone hunter.
The girl is beautiful, mid 20's with dark rolling hair and freckles.
The girl is tragic.
She wipes her eyes and leans back against the red brick wall, half concealed in shadow.
She eats an apple.. takes of her worn leather sandals,
Sits on the hot dirt, then the rainclouds come.
Rain falls and chills her clothes and skin.
She applies pale pink lipstick and calls a taxi from the payphone.
......
White peonies, 300 or more.
Dark oak coffin.
A lady in a grey fur coat, an embroidered handkerchief.
Tears, blonde hair, the smell of hairspray.
A young couple with dark eyes and bronze skin, their hands grasped.
'True Colours', a male pianist, stained glass, high ceiling, arches.
Loneliness.
Heartache.
Loss of friendship.
Aching.
Hopeful,
Fingers crossed.
Will love enter and lightning strike some wonder into the girl-woman's life?
.......
She holds her sister's cold porcelain-white hand, stops a moment to take in the tattoo of a shallow in black ink.
Elisa,
Gone.
29 years old.
Always one year between them but there might as well have been 20.
It's been four months since they met for coffee out near
the motorway where Helen was working at the time.
A golden locket; Helen places it around her sister's slim neck.

The sand burned and bit at my toes
As I stumbled along the dunes
The world thrashed, and in its throes
I found myself trapped and marooned.

You weren't a lake,
Nor a great typhoon,
But one cloud who would take
My hopes and dash them as you moved.

As you were swept away to new places
I cried my last tears, my water wasted.
You drifted off to wet ungrateful faces,
But you could've been my oasis.

There are no right answers.
The sky rejects the birds, turns them
over to gravity,
embedding them in the concrete and dirt.
The grit refuses to become a pearl,
just as the wound refuses to heal
and the flesh eats itself.
The market sees a sudden spike in
sales of Champagne and cyanide.
Coordinated efforts seek and fail
to curtail the rising tide of violence
in the nation's dreaming.
You realise that this crude, barbaric language
that you can't understand
is your own.
Beauty glitches and pixelates.
Frightened, furtive confessions of love
are unheard over proud, visceral
proclamations of hate.
Tongues divorce mouths.
Every now and then, a voice
inside your head says,
'Thud.'
The measures of sanity become
more quantifiable and
totally arbitrary.
The horizon
tightens
like
a noose.

It doesn't matter if this is wrong.
There are no right answers.

I went out for a walk
The other day
9 in the morning
The breeze in the heat felt like grace
Def Leopard in my ears
My mind a million miles away
When I saw a woman
Walking my way
She was taking out the trash and
Something burned in me
This short fragile woman
Shouldn't be out in this hot degree
I said "maam, I can take that for you"
And she offered to pay me
That proposition blew my mind
I laughed and said that's not necessary
She told me about her husband and
How it's been 4 months since he's passed
I said "I'm sorry to hear that"
She said "livin alone's been pretty bad"
She talked about how
He never raised his voice, not even a bit
Every morning before he left for work
He brought her breakfast in bed
They'd been married for 43 years
20 years her elder
She said she wouldn't find a man
Who could treat her any better
In that 30 minute talk
I felt like I lived her life with her
It's amazing the impact people can have
If only we would reach out to help another

Grab my hand* he says
I know what you're going through
The cycles of firey independance
That you can make it, on your own
The wrenching despair
The flashing moment where you don't want to be here anymore
And it all seems so pointless
I know it
We don't have to be here anymore
Take my hand he says
I take his hand
And when the ensuing darkness falls around me
Like choatic endless falling stars
I do not run, I am relieved
My heartbeat is the last thing I hear before he leads me
Into the wild, overgrown garden of sleep.